UN forum spotlights harnessing power of technology to advance development | Division for Inclusive Social Development (DISD)

With nearly everyone on Earth now having access to a mobile cellular network and some three billion people online, a United Nations information and communication technology (ICT) forum opening in Geneva today called for greater efforts to ensure that everyone also has access to broadband connectivity.

“We are here to pave the way for the future and set the roadmap for sustainable development in the post-2015 era,” UN International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré said in his opening message to the High-Level Event on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)+10.

Addressing hundreds of representatives of Government, civil society, academia and the private sector, Mr. Touré noted that world leaders at the WSIS forum in 2003 – the second phase of the Summit was held in Tunis in 2005 – had agreed to promote the use of ICTs to build an inclusive information society and share information and knowledge to promote sustainable development and improve lives.

Throughout this week, participants will continue to review progress made in the past 10 years, but also discuss a vision of what information society should look like in the next decade.
One of the highlights on June 10th was the release of the review of Final WSIS Targets Review, compiled by the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development, of which ITU is a founding member. It shows mixed results with authors calling for stronger ICTs.

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